Drake Night was a rousing success off of the court and DeMar DeRozan made sure it was on the hardwood as well Saturday.

In front of an amped up, noisy sellout crowd, the Raptors put more distance on second-place Brooklyn in a 96-80 win.

The Nets came in on a five-game winning streak, but minus a resting Kevin Garnett, tired down the stretch, a night after beating Miami in double-overtime.

DeRozan led the way with 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Kyle Lowry added 12 points and six assists and Patrick Patterson and John Salmons, who both came over in the Rudy Gay deal, were superb as well.

After a somewhat ugly, but evenly-played first half, the Nets stormed out of the break on an 18-3 run and appeared to have control, until DeRozan exploded, scoring seven straight points to close the third frame. DeRozan yelled and flexed in front of Drake, the Toronto-born Grammy winner, who went wild and later pointed to his own bicep after the triumph.

“Just trying to win,” DeRozan said of his particularly expressive post-play behaviour.

In all the Raptors went on a 21-2 run to gain control and Lowry, again playing like an all-star, slammed the door shut with a stellar fourth quarter as the Raptors improved to 18-17 and moved four games in front of the Nets.

There was a major buzz in the building for the anticipated event.

“We need it like that every night,” Lowry said of the screaming supporters.

Franchise head honcho Tim Leiweke invited Drake into the team’s video room after the game and was overheard joking that he and general manager Masai Ujiri should each kiss a Drake bicep because the night was such a success.

Raptors forward Amir Johnson said the Drake association is serving the franchise well.

“I think it’s great attention. More people want to know what’s going on with Drake and the Raptors, especially for our younger generation that are big fans and big fans of Drake,” Johnson told the Sun pre-game.

“It’s just like Jay-Z and the Brooklyn Nets, just like Spike (Lee) and the New York Knicks; it definitely brings that kind of attention for a team. Look at the Lakers, they always have celebrities sitting on the court. When you have a big artist like Drake, it gets the city talking about Toronto more and more, maybe want to go to a game and support your favourite Raptor and the team also.”

Drake was eager to play his part.

“If I didn’t have to tour, I’d come every night,” Drake said.

“I just want to add to this city and this team ... I want this to be an intimidating building. I want us all to seem like such a tight-knit family. All of us, 17-18,000 people, I want us to all be there present in this moment when we play. Obviously with the last few weeks, this isn’t some team that you can just brush aside. That’s kind of our goal, all of us, to sort of let that be known.”

Toronto has now gone 12-5 since the Rudy Gay trade and 5-0 on Saturday nights as the biggest show in town.

Patterson was a monster on the boards — “he had some main rebounds,” head coach Dwane Casey said — and also scored 14 points. Salmons was one of just two Raptors playing well offensively in the first half and ended up with 13 points on perfect shooting in his best offensive outing as a Raptor.

Salmons said it was important to attack the Nets because every game could be key by the end of the season.

“We know that’s a team that’s playing well, that’s been playing better, everybody knows how much talent they have, everybody expects them to have a great season and they’re starting to get it together,” Salmons said.

“For us right now, every game is big, we’re trying to move up in the standings.”

The Raptors closed within a game of idle Atlanta for third place in the East.